Pathology is the medical science and specialty practice that deals with all aspects of disease, but with special reference to the essential nature, causes, and development of abnormal conditions. This generally includes analysis of the structural and functional changes that result from diseases.
To determine the causes of a disease, a pathologist may study: how various internal and external injuries affect cells and tissues, how a disease progresses (pathogenesis), and how a disease manifests in a tissue (i.e., its clinical expression and the lesions produced). In other words, pathology provides a scientific foundation for clinical medicine and serves as a bridge between the basic sciences and patient care.
Accordingly, accurate and repeatable quantitative analysis of tissue is important to characterize a disease and evaluate effects that new therapies might have. To date, little if any reliable structural information exists at the tissue level (e.g., 1-1000 microns, in the range of microscopic to mesoscopic). It is believed that if reliable, multi-dimensional structural tissue information (including, for example, clinical, molecular and genetic information) existed in readily accessible databases. Such information would enhance and accelerate new advances in tissue engineering, drug design, gene discovery, proteomics, and genomics research.
In order to facilitate the study and diagnosis of disease, investigators have developed a variety of systems and methods. Generally, prior art methods and systems relating to the study of disease are slow, difficult and prone to error. Accordingly, there exists a need for a system and/or method to quickly, efficiently, and/or automatically quantify tissue for determining a condition of a tissue.